Measuring drone noise for environmental reviews

In the United States, federal actions are covered by the National Environmental Policy Act which requires a review process to assess a proposed action's potential impact on the environment. One of the environmental impact categories that must be considered is noise. In order to assess the noise generated during a drone's typical operations, noise measurements of each portion of the drone's flight profile are needed. Because measurements required for type certification of aircraft are focused on source noise, they might not be sufficient to determine the noise resulting from a drone's entire operation from takeoff to landing. This paper discusses a range of feasible noise measurement approaches for assessing a drone operation's noise characteristics along with their associated fidelity. The paper presents a suggested practical measurement protocol that a drone manufacturer or operator could perform.